Oh dear, I've left it ages again since the last blog post. Blame my hectic schedule - updating my blog was always in the back of mind, but, well... it kind of just stayed there. To make up for it, here's a rather lengthy round up of my gigs over the last three months.
Firstly the
Useless Party on Halloween in Paris didn't disappoint.
La Java is really a great venue, with a really friendly crowd of people, and firing sets from Howie B and residents
Princess Lea and Fantomas. Met some great people, and also found the time to go and quickly check out
Fabrice Dayan playing across the road. Paris is great, I cut my teeth playing there in the 90s when I was starting out, and looking forward to playing there more in future...
Back in London the day after, I made it over to Inigo for the Halloween instalment of Love Asylum (nee Love Bullet). Anjuta, the promoter, has gone for an ongoing fancy dress theme, so it was amusing to be playing to a club full of ghouls and witches, although I have to admit I felt kind of under-dressed.
I then played NVL in Minsk in Belarus. Dumb Dan played there the month before and told me a little bit what I should be expecting. NVL basically means UFO, and the entrance to the club is appropriately decked out to look like a spaceship. It's a brand new club with a wicked sound system, and a glammed up crowd. They make an effort on the production/theming too, particularly mind-bending on the night were the uv'ed up dancers/acrobats making bizarre shapes and movements during my set. Also during our stay there we managed to have a car accident (luckily no-one was hurt except the car), and witness the magnificence of the Minsk National Library. If you haven't heard of it, google it or check it out on Youtube now. It's properly paradoxical - a bastion of reserve and erudition that looks like it's come straight out of Las Vegas. Brilliant.
Next up, time for a trip down to Stavropol in the South of Russia to play in Ermitage, for a Winston-sponsored party. Another great club with a really responsive crowd. There's much (much) more to my trip down there, since I was followed by a camera team from Russia.Ru, Russia's biggest internet TV portal. It features, amongst other things, me learning to play accordion in the street, cooking shashlik in a restaurant and burning my arm, dancing tectonik with a couple of teenagers by a statue of Lenin, drinking fresh mineral water with a very strong sulphurous after-taste, and almost getting arrested by the local militia. But I'll leave all this for a future post, when the film is actually ready for you to view!
The weekend after this I was over in Kharkov in Ukraine to play a club called Maska. It was touch and go whether I was actually going to make it at one point since there was so much wind that the plane from Kiev was heavily delayed. But all good in the end. The club was cool, a slightly younger crowd who seemed to really get into what I was doing. We also went to check out S.O.N. in the same city. A really cool club, was rather empty on our visit, but could see it being wicked on a busier night.
Sadly, the following week's gig in Romania was cancelled due to the venue, Atlantis, having some trouble with the local authorities. It was disappointing since I was really looking forward to my debut there, but hope I can make it at some point in 2009! Anyway, I managed to head over to Barcelona for a few days to meet up with my good friend
John Ashby to work on some new tracks and a video project we are plotting together. More info soon :-)
The next few weeks it was back to Russia again. On 5th December, I played the closing set for NokiaTrendsLive at Gaudi Arena in Moscow with Tiga and Santigold. I missed Santigold's set, but heard Tiga playing for the first time before me - he was really very good, on point musical vibe and good connection with the crowd. I also hooked up with some old friends, including the ever-hilarious and urbane Alexey from 44100, and managed an interview for a local tv station, where they quizzed me about my ongoing fascination with Russia.
Also made it to Studio 74 in Chelyabinsk (yes, it's really like my second home). Had a fantastic night there as always. Also popped over to L-Radio for an interview with Petr Karetnikov. He noted that I am the only foreign DJ who has had quite so many interviews on their station (we counted six that we could remember)
Then it was over to Podval in Ekaterinburg. This was only my second time playing in the city, I had been to Snow Project a couple of years before, where the DJ famously plays from a snowplough in the middle of the dancefloor. Just before the gig, I did a quick interview for Radio Pilot with the
FullHouse DJs crew. I really liked Podval, it's a tiny venue with a real party vibe. It gets busy late and stays open late, and has a reputation as an after hours place. I only wished I could have stayed longer, but we needed to get back to Moscow in time to fly to Turkey for New Years Eve...
..which was spectacular! Adam & Eve is a luxury design hotel in Antalya in Turkey based around the concept of relaxation and partying in equal measures. The New Year's eve event took place in the Atrium, a massive hall with a huge rectangular ceiling covered in hundreds of thousands of tiny mirrors (it's in the Guinness Book of Records because of this), flowing champagne, acrobats and performers, scintillating lasers reflecting off the roof and fireworks shooting out of the walls. It was a great way to see in 2009, and I can't wait to go back there this summer.
Couple of weekends off at the beginning of January then right back into the fray. I re-visited Love Asylum in London, this time at the fantastic Dex Club - a really great venue, with a slamming crystal clear
Funktion One sound system - and with the crowd in full superhero garb. I managed a 3 hour set despite having sprained my left arm (blame the icy pavements in Moscow!), I think the Joker and Catwoman particularly enjoyed it.
Which brings me finally to last weekend in Zelenograd in Russia. I played at Kakadu, where I had the honour of being the first ever English DJ to play. Cool little club which stayed rocking until well past 6am. Nice one...
There's a huge list of people to thank for the above gigs and for looking after me over the last couple of months, so here goes: Thomas, Emmanuel, Fabrice, Anjuta, Shiva, Misha, Sasha, Gosha & the rest of the crew in Minsk, Nastya, Yury, Alena, Anton, Taras, John, Roma, Anya, Petr, the FullHouse DJs, Zhenya (and Zhenya's mate who drove us to the airport!), Tolga, Darina, Svetlana, Andrey, and anyone else I've no doubt forgotten to include. You're all stars, see you again very soon!
I'm super-busy over the next few weeks again. This week I'm heading off to Sochi in South of Russia for SWMC, Russia's answer to the WMC. I'm playing at a VIP party (oo-er) on Friday 6th as well as at 8Nebo on Saturday, with Solaris Heights and Denis A. Please check my schedule for other forthcoming gigs, and see you out and about!
